News

Speaking at the Startup Nations Summit in Seoul, Korea, Startup Ireland CoFounder Eoin Costello shared the lessons he learnt in growing the Startup Ireland initiative with an audience that included leaders from national entrepreneur development initiatives such as Startup Chile, Startup Australia, Startup Canada and Startup Korea.

EBAN last week officially launched Business Angels Week (BAW) 17-23 November 2014, the world’s largest cross-border angel investment awareness initiative featuring Business Angels and Entrepreneurs from Europe, the Middle East (MBAN) and Africa (ABAN).

The Irish Internet Association (IIA) held its third annual post-Budget briefing session to review the Irish Budget 2015 in the specific context of the ICT sector this week. Michael McGivern, tax partner at RSM Farrell Grant Sparks, kicked off the morning with an in-depth overview of the key points in yesterday’s Budget speech, before joining Dublin’s Commissioner for Start-ups Niamh Bushnell, and Michael Culligan of the Halo Business Angel Network (HBAN) for a panel discussion mediated by Silicon Republic CEO Ann O’Dea.

NDRC’s Female Founders, a pre-accelerator for new technology startups with gender diversity in their founding teams in partnership with AIB and Enterprise Ireland have announced a winner. The event which took place on 22nd August saw pitches from 9 companies but it was Tara Van Zyl that came out on top and RTE have released this great video explaining why. 

Microsemi Corporation, a leading provider of semiconductor solutions, has announced it has acquired Cork based Mingoa, a leading provider of semiconductor IP for hardware accelerated Ethernet OAM and embedded tests. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed but this was a successful exit for investors including members of the HBAN Boole Syndicate.​

Co Kildare firm Equilume aims to revolutionise horsebreeding across the globe with an innovative new light mask for horses which brings the breeding season of mares forward to meet industry timelines, and even has the ability to reduce jetlag.

Rather than going back to the banks, a Cork-based wine company has secured a loan of €30,000 from its customers’ pockets.

What does Ohio and Northern Ireland have in common?  On first thought, probably not a lot.  However, according to John Huston, founder and manager of the Ohio Tech Angels Fund, there are a lot more similarities than you think.  Often seen as a ‘flyover state’ and ‘a backwater’, Ohio has only 4% of the US population but has over 700 angels across 7 angel groups and this is all without the tax benefits that investors enjoy in Northern Ireland.​

The EBAN Congress was, as well as many other things, the stage for the launch of the Startup Investors Manifesto which called up for the early stage investment community to support a series of actions and policies aimed at increasing European early stage investment to 15 billion Euros and creating 1,5 million new jobs by 2017.

The 9th annual EBAN awards ceremony took place in evening of the first day and recognised European business angel federations, networks and investors who have demonstrated excellence and commitment to driving business angel investment over the last year. The distinguished "winners" include: